Brain Junkfood: House of the Dead: Overkill- Extended Cut

I would be a discredit to gamers if I didn't talk about games that everyone finds as a guilty pleasure. Without any good or comical male chauvinist influences in games that mock the norm of casual sex (or have attractive looking women... seriously, what the fuck is that thing?), Sega saves the day with not one, but two stereotyped males! One of them is the rookie, by the book agent, and the other is a fowl mouthed, slang spewing cliche, one that makes Samuel L. Jackson seem uncool. Sorry, Mr. Jackson... I didn't mean it. But, as the late, great Billy Mays would say, wait, there's more! We also get to play as two strippers in this version of the game! I'm not just talking about the original game, folks. I'm talking about House of the Dead: Overkill- Extended Cut!

Like all great House of the Dead games, Overkill is a lightgun shooter. You use a special controller, in this case, the Move controller, as a gun, aim, and shoot at the badguys. But, also like all House of the Dead games, they make fun of one of the worst lines in game history: "Suffer Like G, Did?" But, instead of using just the line, Overkill names an entire song after it. And, like the theme, all of the music is based on the Grindhouse style. This makes for some interesting lines, let me tell you.

The plot is that Agent G ('Fraid you'll never know what the "G" stands for) and Detective Isaac Washington are dead set on arresting evil mastermind Papa Cesar for unleashing a mutant outbreak. Cesar is holding Dr. Jasper Guns hostage, but when Cesar threatens Jasper's sister, Jasper injects himself with the serum to turn him from Stephen Hawking to a giant brain with a body. After Jasper is killed, you follow Cesar through such locals as a carnival and a train, aided by Jasper's stripper sister, Varla Guns.

There's a side plot in the PS3 Extended version where you play as Varla, and her friend, Candi Stryper. Candi is also Jasper's girlfriend, and has some of the funniest lines in the game. In one section, Varla insults her, and this dialogue comes up:

Candi: Well, nothing you, Varla Guns!
Varla: What?
Candi: My mother told me if I didn't have anything nice to say, then say nothing. So, nothing you!

Needless to say, when Candi's arm gets cut off, she says nothing. Literally, she says, "Nothing!" over and over. Considering that she's the only other character who isn't crude, it comes off as all the more hilarious. Even when asked how she made a gymnastics move in a leg brace, she replies, "Jasper used to ask me that all the time." Yes, Dr. Hawking is apparently a pimp. Don't boo me, you know its true!

Back to the crude characters, our main villain is a prison warden named Clement Darling, who immediately looks like a zombie. He takes a piss in front of his car, but gets some on his leg. Frustrated, he says this to G and Washington: "Oh shit. I just pissed on my left leg of my pants. Now, if I meet anyone new and interesting, they're going to be inclined to believe that I'm the type of guy who pisses himself. Even though, I'm not the type of guy who pisses himself, they'll think that I am!" Instead of killing him, G and Washington go to the prison, only to find Darling is the bad guy. He switches his mother's brain with Varla's, so that his mother will stay young. He wants a young mother because he wants to have sex with his mother. Damn it, Freud, stop placing your theories in my video games!

After a missing reel of our heroes killing his mother, she turns into a giant monster, and you have to kill her with randomly found miniguns. After she dies, Darling asks to redeem himself... by walking back into her... well... let's just say he's conceived again. Washington blows the place up, while G professes his love for Varla's brain. They then get attacked by a zombie.

While not the weirdest game I've ever played, it is the weirdest light gun I've played since Beast Busters, and that game had pregnant zombies that gave birth when killed. I do miss the '80's light gun games... It isn't for everyone, but it is worth looking at. Especially if you played the original games.

Now, to start the new year right... by ending the Soviet Union! Will I feel a bit Empty after the next Brain Junkfood? Stay tuned...